Dr Moyers, Neuroscientist
by Epiphanyx7
Summary: This is what happens when I get too little sleep. Meet Meredith Moyers, the new Neuroscientist who has been thrust upon Atlantis. Slight-to-major AU, gen, rating for language and both het & slash implied pairings.
1. Atlantis, City of the Ancients

**Dr. Moyers, Neuroscientist**

Author's Note:

This is the first story I have ever written in this particular fandom. Be nice and gentle with me. This is an AU, where Ford is being looked after on Atlantis, Carson is very much active, and the Stargate Program is about to go public. This is, of course, the story of one Dr. Merideth Moyers, a Neuroscientist sent to study the Wraith and, more importantly, to help Aiden. If the characters seem a little off, sorry. I'm trying to give an outsider's perspective, so it might take a while for Merideth to warm up to her boss. I'm trying to get a feel for the characters, so don't take this story too seriously.

* * *

Chapter One: _Atlantis, City of the Ancients_

* * *

"That went... rather well, I think." 

The good doctor looks a bit green around the gills, and the woman standing next to him doesn't have it in her heart to blame him. She shrugs, handing him his stethoscope - not knowing exactly how she ended up in possession of it - and tries to take a deep breath. She winces and massages her left wrist, which hurts. "When I wake up tomorrow, it will be to a mass of bruises on my ribcage and around my throat." She says, to herself. "I look as if I got into a fight with a python, and lost."

Carson Beckett drapes the stethoscope around his neck and doesn't quite meet her gaze. "I don't know what to do, lass." he says to her, quietly enough that the nurses and orderlies in the infirmary can't hear him. "If you can't help him..."

He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't have to.

Doctor Merideth Moyers shivers. _The moment you step foot off of the Daedalus, your entire life will change._ She shakes her head, pulling the tight elastic out of her hair and letting it fall down, halfway to her waist in a mostly-smooth black wave. _Liutenant Colonel Samantha Carter LIED when she said that to me._

First of all, one doesn't 'step foot off of' the Daedalus. Not unless there is something monstrously wrong which will inevitable lead to your imminent doom, or demise, or destruction. Instead, she was beamed down. Demolecularized and disintigrated into nothing, transported at the speed of light, and then reintegrated a few nanoseconds later, intact, perfectly dressed and rumpled, clutching her laptop and purse as if they were her childhood comforts, teddy bear and security blanket.

Merideth closes her eyes and lets Carson check her over for damage.

He looked so _alone_. Frightened, tense, still half-high and half-crazy, tiny, insignificant, pathetic. Psychotic and _broken_. Lieutenant Aiden Ford.

For the first time, Merideth wished she'd stayed at home. Wished she hadn't jumped at the chance to join the top-secret government agency which could let her run her experiments and finish her research without ethical concerns. The Asgard were wonderful scientists.

"You poor thing." Carson's voice is suddenly gentle. "You must be exhausted. Haven't even had a chance to unpack your things, have you?"

She shook her head and winced as he brushed one of the newly-forming bruises around her throat. "I'd like to go get some sleep now." She says quietly, her voice hoarse. "I don't... I don't know where everything is, yet... could you have someone just show me to my quarters? I can figure everything else out in the morning."

Carson nods and sends a nurse.

Merideth is so tired, she doesn't remember any of the conversation they had on the way to her room, which is bare and cold when she gets there. She tells the room to warm up, and climbs onto the bed. It hasn't any blankets or pillows and her things are all piled haphazardly in the corner, but she doesn't really give a damn when she finally drifts into unconcsciousness.

The next day, she is introduced to the rest of the Science Staff.

"IMBECILES! The lot of you! Where, exactly, does one go to get a Ph.D in Idiocy? Do I need to hold your hands while we walk down the hallways? Surely, even CHILDREN with their snotty noses and their high-pitched, irritating, whiny voices could manage to be just a little bit more efficient than you morons. After all, it isn't as if they could be _worse_."

Dr. Weir clears her throat.

The man in the blue, rather wrinkled-looking t-shirt spins around and stares at her, a hard, uncompromising stare. He is a little bit flushed, a little bit sweaty, and more than a little bit irritated if the slight narrowing of his eyes or the rather obvious expression on his face is any indication. "Yes, Elizabeth?" His voice is miraculously calm.

"This is Dr. Merideth Moyers." Elizabeth says, gesturing to the small woman at her side. "She's... well, the only new scientist from Earth. Daedalus dropped her off yesterday."

Merideth is nervous. She's a teeny, tiny bit afraid of him, although she'd die before she'd let him know it. "Pleased to meet you." She says, arching an eyebrow imperiously as she says the words slowly, devoid of any inflection.

"Rodney McKay. I'm in charge of all the science departments, not just this one, and I will definitely be checking your work to make sure you're not a moron." He says to her.

Considering how he had just berated his coworkers, Merideth beleives him.

"Are you a physicist?"

"Neuroscientist."

He gives her an approving nod. "There's no lab space available, so you're going to have to beg if you need to run any experiments. I'll let you know if anything becomes available."

Elizabeth leaves, and Rodney McKay goes back to yelling at his staff.

_What have I gotten myself in to?_ Merideth wonders. She doesn't bother staying to hear the rest of the lecture - she's not a physicist, and most of what he's saying makes no sense to her.

She decides to follow a few marines to the cafeteria, where the food is unrecognizable and smells extremely appetizing.

ROAST BEAST the day's menu proclaims loudly. She hopes they're at least partly joking.

"Hey there."

He sits across from her, smiling and tilting his head back so that he can peer at her through half-closed lids, slouching in his seat and giving her a friendly look. "John Sheppard." He says, by way of introduction, and John Sheppard doesn't suit him, not quite. He's a bit too smooth, too calming and his hair is a bit too perfectly touseled for her to think of him as something so mundane as "John". He looks like a David, Brady, a Travis, or even a Garret.

"Nice to meet you, John." Merideth says politely, as she maneuvers a potato-like object onto her fork and takes a dainty little bite.

"So..." He leans forward, his voice dropping a bit lower and a lot softer, as if the topic of their conversation is too intimate for the mess hall. "It isn't what you thought it would be, is it?"

"Hmm?" She mumbles around of mouthful of something that tastes too buttery and delicious to bother being hesitant at its mauve colour.

"Atlantis. City of the Ancients. I bet they told you all about the technological wonders, about all the knowledge in store for you... and then you get dumped on this rather picturesque rock with a bunch of jumpy, irritable, caffeine-deprived scientists and some seriously fucked millitary personell, and you want to go home and back in time to a point where you'd never heard of the Stargate Program." John smiles at her, understanding.

Merideth stares at her hands, and then shakes her head. "Not true."

"No?"

"They told me that this was Atlantis, City of the Ancients." She said, quietly, wondering why she was confessing this to a man she'd just met. "They told me about the technological wonders, and all the knowledge to be had, and I turned them down. They told me about the Wraith and said that they could really use me in the fight for humanity, and I turned them down." She giggles, a little giddy, and then quickly attacks the rest of her meal.

John leans back and studies her. "Why are you here, then?"

"They offered me something I couldn't refuse." Merideth doesn't tell him what, because he'll think she's insane.

The man across the table likes her answer, though. He nods at her. "I flipped a coin." He says, grinning, and then he stands up, a barely-discernable shrug of the shoulders has his shirt settling over his chest in a very flattering way, and he saunters away, not looking back to see her watching him leave.

Merideth wonders if there are any normal people in Atlantis.


	2. Methods of Self Medicating

Author's Note:

Please don't hate me. I'm writing this after 1 AM on a Thursday night, and I'm caffiene-deprived and more than slightly... off. Unbeta'd, until further notice, so if you notice anything please tell me. Oh, and if you're confused about the plot... don't worry about it. So am I.

* * *

Chapter Two: _Methods of Self-Medicating_

* * *

No, apparently. There weren't any normal people on Atlantis.

Radek Zelenka handed her another glass of his home-brewed vodka, which could have doubled as drain cleaner back on earth. The fumes were strong enough to make her eyes water, but it had been three weeks since she'd arrived on Atlantis, and she hadn't managed to make a single friend aside from the small, wiry physicist.

"You, you should not drink so much." Radek said seriously, as carefully poured so much liquid into the glass that it bulged over the rim, surface tension keeping it stable for now.

Merideth sipped off the top, not minding the burn as the alcohol slid down her throat. "I need a drink, Doc." She replied, equally serious. "My methods of self-medicating are few, and this one, at least, I know is not going to have me deported back to Earth!"

They don't mention the biologist who was sent back for growing an... unusual assortement of plant life from Earth. (And then smoking that plant life.)

Radek put an arm around her shoulder and clinked their glasses together.

Merideth drained hers immediately, as if it were a large shot of tequila, and then glares while Radek sips slowly.

"I don't know what to do." She confessed to him, a moment of weakness. "I don't have any idea what to do. There isn't nearly enough information, on the Wraith or on... anything... we're so _unprepared_. How can I help him if I haven't the first idea where to start?"

Regular brain scans were _not_ enough.

Merideth knows how to create an interface between human and computer just like the Ancient city used - it was her research that had brought her to the attention of the Stargate Program in the first place. What she didn't know, was how to _help_ him. _Aiden_, he'd told her to call him.

Radek let her cry on his shoulder, and then he poured her another glass.

"You will find a way." He said, slowly. "You are not stupid. And not spoiled. Unlike many scientists here, you do not wait for there to be new technology that will do work for them. No, you will do work and you will find a way."

Merideth wiped her cheeks - glad , for a moment, that she wasn't wearing mascara - and sipped slowly at her moonshine.

They talk, afterwards, of everything and nothing. Radek does his best to hide the fact that he has an unrequited crush on someone else - Merideth knows it exists, but not who is the object of his affections. He was morose for a moment, recovered quickly, and then teased her mercilessly about her crush on the fluffy-haired Lieutenant Colonel, but Merideth doesn't rise to the bait.

"He's too... shiny." She explained, slowly.

"Shiny?"

"Like _tinfoil_."

If anybody noticed Radek stumbling out of her room the next morning, they don't say anything. Although, it's pretty obvious to anyone who looks that they are both very, very, hung over.

Radek flinched away from the lights in the lab when he enters, hoping that he would go unnoticed so that perhaps he could lose consciousness in front of his laptop.

"Zelenka!" Dr. McKay grabbed the smaller man's arm, spinning him around and peering anxiously into his eyes. "You look like hell."

"I have had too much to drink last night, Rodney, is fine." Radek made a move towards his work station.

"Get some rest, get some food, and when you come back bring me some coffee." It is an order, not a request, so Radek grumbles quietly as he obeys, glad for a chance to sleep on his own bed. He doesn't remember going to sleep the night before, but he was very drunk, and is grateful that he wasn't left on the floor or slumped in an awkward position.

Merideth, meanwhile, is in the infirmary with Ford, who is injecting himself with the Wraith Enzyme.

"I feel better now." He says, turning to look at her.

She nods at him. "Better how? I need you to be specific, very specific."

Ford - Aiden, she's supposed to call him - is getting jumpy but he tries to sit still. "I'm stronger. Faster. Healthier. No pain, no stress, I'm happy and relaxed and I can do anything." he said, earnestly. "Anything."

"Can you stop?" It's a paradox and Merideth regrets the words the instant they leave her mouth.

He grins at her, a slightly lopsided, boyish grin that would certainly melt most young women's heart, if it weren't for the disconcerting eye and the scars that mar his face. Burn marks, most of them. Merideth knows how to fix that damage but she isn't going to bother with something so trivial when he has a more pressing problem.

"That's why I like you, Doc." He grinned at her. "You're a thinker. Smart."

"You said you felt stronger? How so?"

"You know..." Aiden looked confused. "Stronger. More powerful."

"But, your muscle mass hasn't changed." Merideth pointed out. "I want to know... is it that you have increased stamina, or power? Are your muscles doing more work, without actually increasing in mass?"

She pulls out her newest gadget - something the labs hadn't been able to figure out until Carson had accidentally used it to scan McKay's brain.

"You know what, Ford?"

"Aiden." he corrects her automatically.

"Well, Aiden..." Merideth stares at the information loading too fast for her to read. "I'm going to see you tomorrow. Same time. I think..." The rest is mumbles, incomprehensible murmurs as she speaks to herself.

The headset is her favourite peice of equipment. "McKay? Moyers here. I need a lab, immediately."

McKay responds immediately, which means he wasn't busy and had nothing better to do. "Moyers?"

"Neuroscientist." She reminds him. He isn't absentminded, he just doesn't bother learning names unless he thinks someone can keep up, not get sent back to earth, and stay alive long enough for it to matter. She clearly doesn't fall into any of those categories, which is disenheartening in its own way.

There is a short, audible pause. "There's a bit of extra space in my lab, now, as Radek is wrapping up his latest project." McKay sounds as if he doesn't want to share his lab space, which is most likely the truth.

Merideth waits for him to offer it.

"You... you think you're going to be able to help Ford?"

It occurs to her, then, that McKay actually cares about the kid, even though he falls under to category of Military Grunt. It also occurs to her, a second later, that McKay still hadn't offered her the lab space, and that was probably because he assumed he didn't need to.

Merideth wandered towards the labs, feeling more and more puzzled. "Aiden's a good kid." She told McKay over the radio. "I am going to figure out how to help him, yes."

McKay snorts, and then turns off his radio.

It takes sixteen hours to set up her lab the way she likes it - impeccably neat, perfect, everything in it's own place, labelled correctly in her own personal code, not for any security reason but because she was always too busy to write full words.

A lab is a place of _science_.

She has, of course, a smaller lab off of the infirmary, so that she can use the infirmary equipment if she needed to. Merideth enjoys having space.

It occurs to her, looking at the cluttered mess of papers and technology sitting in the rest of the lab, that McKay would probably hate sharing the room with her.

Fortunately, she had something else to care about.

She carefully laid out her equipment, her journals, and then a small cage with a mouse named Jerry. Vial after vial of precisely labelled enzymes, neurotransmitters, and viruses were put into place in her own special containment unit. It was a marvel of her own mind, created specifically for refrigerating samples at precise temperatures, each section capable of maintaining a unique temperature, each section containing six samples, and one hundred sections to the entire, very small, unit.

Having everything put away, she fed Jerry, stroked a finger along his back, and then went back to her quarters for a few hours of rest.


	3. Coffee and Chocolate

Author's Note:

I am going to try and actually finish this story. Uh... my track record isn't so great, so for now, let's assume that each chapter is a snapshot of life in Atlantis that is intended to stand on its own. Feel free to review. If Moyers starts turning into a Mary Sue, for the love of god, warn me.

* * *

Chapter Three: _Coffee and Chocolate will get you anywhere pointed threats and name-calling won't._

* * *

Life on Atlantis was fairly calm. Merideth knew that it wasn't really... calm, actually. It was the opposite of calm. There were near-death experiences for half of the personell every day, and stressfull experiences for the remainder. If you didn't almost die, blow something up, or have to help someone else to not die or blow up, you weren't really on Atlantis. 

But it didn't really affect her, because she wasn't one of those on the away teams. She got to stay at 'home' in her nice, cozy (cramped) quarters or in her (equally cramped) lab space, working quietly and efficiently with her own specially-designed equipment. She alternated working hours with McKay, for the most part, because he liked to work by running around and shouting orderse at his minions, scrambling through his mess of papers and gadgets to find the one thing he needed. He was brilliant and intimidating, and she would sit on her half of the lab with her one lab assistant, staring at him as he worked. It was better than television. Instead, she didn't bother working while he was in the lab, preferring to work through the wee hours of the night and on the days he was off-world.

In Atlantis, nothing stays the same for very long, so she wasn't very surprised when various military officers started to ask her to join their away teams. She smiled at them and politely declined, although a few of them tried to reassure her of her safety if she should join the team.

"There's really nothing to worry about. We'd only be going on missions to planets we're already allied with. And, of course, having an expert on ancient technology would really be an asset in the field..."

Merideth tried her best to tune him out. "Could you pass me that doohickey? I need to recalibrate this field so I can run the simulations again."

He handed her the tool she needed while continuing on his prepared speech. Instead of joining an away team, she ended up hiring Captain Jameson as her personal assistant, because even the lab techs running around couldn't keep her personalized tools straight, and Phillip Jameson not only managed to be very efficient, but also intuitive. Two hours after he entered her lab, he was handing her tools she barely knew she needed before she asked for them, pointed out a minor fluctuation in the EM field that was screwing with her results, and still hadn't stopped his recruiting speech.

"I will give you a chocolate bar a week if you shut up and just agree to be my assistant." She finally told him pointedly.

His jaw dropped and then he said, his voice a little higher. "Chocolate?"

"Three chocolate bars a week." She decided. "And coffee, the good stuff, while you're working. You can switch from away team to security detail, right? That way you'll be available whenever I need you."

Jameson agreed, and Merideth was glad that she'd listened to Daniel, the extremely entertaining man at the SGC who had told her in that in the Pegasus Galaxy, coffee and chocolate would get her anywhere that pointed threats and name-calling didn't.

Eventually, John Sheppard - or, rather, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard - found her.

She didn't bother saying anything, because she'd just shoved half of a chocolate-chip muffin into her mouth and was busy hoarding the remains, becuase this was the last chocolate chip muffin she was likely to eat for a while, and she'd be damned before she lost a single precious crumb.

"We need you on an away team." He informed her.

She shook her head and stared at the charts in front of her, her forehead wrinkling as she concentrated. Her results were still to scattered, too random... there had to be a way to get into detailed structures and make specific alterations in order to -

"You're an expert on Ancient technology."

- better predict the output levels, because if she couldn't find a way to make the output specifically and identically what she wanted, then the entire experiment was useless. Minute changes could create drastic results, so she had to change each individual setting and plot the results -

"You're the only one who really understands how the interface works."

- which would be ridiculously time-consuming, she had to figure out how the entire system was structured first. Then, theoretically, she could predict the changes each potential interface would create, and would be able to narrow down the majority of changes neccesary to match the template -

"You aren't even LISTENING to me!"

- and of course, she hadn't even STARTED on the template, and in order to get that she'd have to - "I am perfectly capable of multi-tasking, Colonel." Merideth snapped. "I don't have time to join an away team." - create yet another previously unheard of bit of technology, more sophisticated than anything that the Ancients or Asgard or even the Goa'uld had ever created. How was she going to find the technological aspects to build something that detailed? Not to mention the memory storage required would be astronomical... And she'd have to find a way to do this without severely depleting the power resources...

"Dr. Montgomery is leaving with the Daedalus, tomorrow. We need another scientist to help with the away missions, and you happen to be perfect for the job."

Merideth turned to him and glared. "Look, Colonel, I understand completely where you're coming from. I am not saying no out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I am not rejecting your offers because I don't want to help. The truth is, I would love to be able to help you, but I can't. _I do not have the time_."

Sheppard stared at her.

"Your medical staff _lied_ to their superiors and said that Lieutenant Ford was too _unstable_ to handle the journey home on the Daedalus. That is not going to work again, because those superiors are prepared to demand his return when the Daedalus arrives the next time, or when we have enough reserve power to open the wormhole. And that, _sir_, is just a half-step away from having him shuffled off to some NID research centre where they will treat him like a lab rat and experiment on him until he dies, and then they can dissect him and toss out his body like so much trash." She took a short breath and continued. "I don't want that for him, so I have a few weeks at most to come up with a solution to his problem, and them implement it so that the next time the Daedalus arrives, he'll be halfway through a treatment program that can't be interrupted for a ride home, and they are not prepared to send ME home just to babysit him, so he can stay here a little bit longer. And maybe, just maybe, he can actually be cured, so that if he ever does need to return to Earth, he will be treated just like any other human being instead of as an experiment. Am I making myself clear? Do you understand what I am trying to say?"

He ran a hand through his hair, looking a bit shocked and stressed out. "Yeah." He agreed, suddenly morose. "Look... Dr. Moyers..."

"Emergencies only." She replied. "If there is an emergency off-world and you honestly think that I would be the best person for the job, I will go, no questions asked. But I am not going to join an away team."

Sheppard smiled ruefully. "I guess that's going to be the best I can do right now..."

"Why don't you ask Dr. McKay to reccomend someone?" She asked.

He shot her a sideways look. "I did. He reccomended _you_."

"Pity." She turned back to her research.

A week later, things got weird.

Jameson was sitting in her lab, his feet up and a white lab coat thrown over his military gear. He was carefully writing a very neat, detailed report of her latest experiment, while she ran simulations on the computer in the back. "This is never going to work." Merideth snapped, frustrated. "This stupid computer doesn't have nearly enough memory to compensate for the-"

"Can I talk to you?"

They both turned towards the doorway, where a tiny Chinese woman was standing nervously, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Uh." Merideth said by way of reply.

She practically flew in the doorway, coming to an abrupt stop about half a metre in front of Merideth. "I don't know what to do." She said, quickly, the words escaping her lips so quickly they almost blurred together. "I mean... this is all so strange, I don't even know how I can explain anything and now he thinks I'm cheating or that I've been lying the entire time and this is so unfair..."

Merideth stared. Jameson stared.

"Your husband thinks you're cheating on him?" Jameson, finally, hazarded a guess.

The woman blinked at him and then burst into tears. "How am I supposed to TELL him?"

Merideth stood and then hugged the other woman carefully. "Let's get you to the infirmary." She said slowly. "And, why don't you ask for him to be brought on board? Your husband is a very talented engineer, right?" She smiled encouragingly.

After they'd given the woman to Carson for a sedative, and then made an appointment for Heightmeyer to see her in the infirmary when she woke up, Merideth and Jameson stood staring at each other in the hallway.

"Does that happen often?" He asked her.

"I don't get it." She shook her head disbelievingly. "People just think 'hey, psychologist' and they totally forget that I'm not the type of psychologist that cares about their emotional problems."

He snorted, because he didn't believe her for a second. She may not have been a counsellor by profession, but she'd never once told the woman to go away, or even been the slightest bit rude or unfeeling.

"Poor Cho." Merideth muttered. "I am hungry, do you think they have any good salads in the mess?"

He shrugged and then followed her.


	4. Running Out of Time

Author's Note: This was originally just the end of Chapter 3... and then I decided it would be better to have it as a separate chapter. Good thing, too, because it kind of evolved into the longest chapter yet! Yay for a tiny hints of a background on Moyers, and this time, we get specifics! Oh, and pay attention to tiny details. Either I've made a mistake, or there's something unexpected (ha!) happening on Atlantis! A cookie to whomever points it out first.

* * *

Chapter Four: _Running out of Time_

* * *

After seven different people had come to her with their marital issues, Merideth dragged Kate Heightmeyer out of her office and forced her, with a few pointed threats and a bribe of a pound of dark-roasted Columbian coffee, to announce that she would be holding special sessions for those on the expedition who had issues with their spouses that they would like to discuss. 

"You're so nice." Radek told her, laughing. "You always try to make sure everyone around you is happy."

"Shut up, Radek." Merideth was sitting in the mess, the only one at her table before the Czech had sat beside her a moment earlier, poking her with the tip of his ballpoint pen.

"You care about their _feelings_." He smiled brightly. "Is such a wonderful thing. I am not used to it. Maybe I should come to you when I want to talk about problems?"

She snorted, a loud and unladylike snort which made her immensely happy that Radek was one of the few men who wouldn't judge her for that. "I just wanted them to leave me alone."

"Grumpy Dr. Moyers, helping people resolve their issues so that she can get on with her work..." Jameson appeared from nowhere - not literally, although in Atlantis anything is possible - and sat across from them. "We finally got that simulation to run the way you wanted it to, though, Doc."

"Don't call me Doc." She bit viciously into a carrot.

"Is simulation to help Lieutenant Ford?" Radek asked.

The two men continued talking, and Merideth ignored them. Ideas streamed through her brain almost too fast for her to understand. Theories with equations footnoted beneath, schematics for new technology watermarked behind, all neatly labelled in bold font at the top. Her mind shuffled each thought into an appropriate file, some immediately being tossed out as frivolous, others being shoved to the back of her mind to think through throuroughly later, and yet others being highlighted and shoved into the cabinet where other files of similar natures resided.

"Radek." She said, aloud, suddenly. "Is there any Ancient technology lying around that we don't need?"

"All is important." Radek looked confused. "We need everything."

"I mean, stuff that isn't important... that toaster we found! And the music box... the toys for the kids, and other things that aren't immediately essential?"

"Yes. If you need them, you can ask Rodney what he's deemed useless."

Jameson was staring at her. "Hey, Doc, are you married?"

"What?"

"Married. I mean... Doctor Zelenka and I were just talking about Heightmeyer's offer to help people... which you definitely blackmailed her into, by the way, don't pretend that I don't know... and I mentioned that I felt guilty about my leaving my wife behind..."

Merideth nodded. "She's young and pregnant. You ought to ask to go home with the Daedalus when it returns, so you can be there when she gives birth."

He glared at her. "They turned me down."

"Bastards." She commented.

"You avoid the question, Dr. Moyers." Radek prodded her gently. "I have been married once before, it did not work out. Have you been married?"

"Yes." She nodded stiffly. "I was married, once."

"You divorced?" Radek asks softly, his voice careful and gentle.

"No." She shook her head, her hair escaping a few of its bobby pins and sticking out messily as it was wont to do. "I... I'm a widow."

Radek stared at her. "I'm very sorry." Radek says, placing his hand on her shoulder. "I did not know."

Jameson looks horrified. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She shrugs. "It was... long enough ago. A car accident. We were both badly injured. I almost died from the blood loss, and even then they did everything they could and still did not manage to save my arm. I was scarred, had to have plastic surgery... but still, my wife was not so lucky."

Jameson, who had just taken a sip of his apple juice, choked. "_Wife_?" He repeated, shocked. Then, he caught himself and cleared his throat, blushing a little bit. "I mean, uh.. wow. What was her name?"

"Lillith." Merideth smiled, because Jameson was so young and happy and that hadn't been the most horrifying reaction she'd received. "You would have liked her, Phillip, she was nothing at all like me."

Jameson had the grace to blush.

Her headset beeped at her, and then Carson's voice filled her ear, washing away the last stray equations that shifted into words and back again, dancing behind her closed lids. "Dr. Moyers? Could you please come to the infirmary?"

She excused herself and hurried down the hall, because there weren't really a lot of reason she'd be called to the infirmary, so she had a good idea of what to expect. Aiden Ford was standing in the middle of the room, screaming at the nurses.

"You don't know what you're doing! _You don't know what you're talking about,_ I am FINE, I'm FINE, I -"

"Aiden!" She shouted, trying to get his attention.

He turned to her, eyes wild. "Doc, you gotta help me, they are being _totally_ _unreasonable_."

"How, Aiden?" She asked pointedly. "They are trying to _help_ you."

Aiden's eyes narrowed, one dark brown and the other black, black as night and coal and stardust floating between galaxies. "I don't need help."

"You need help, Aiden. What are you going to do when we run out of the enzyme?" A small part of her mind wondered why the hell they called it an enzyme. It really was more of a neurotransmitter...

"I'll just get more." He explained to her, patiently, as if she were a child. "You don't understand, it's better like this! I just need more, that's it, a little more and I'll be just fine, just perfect..."

Carson entered the room, a grim look on his face and a syringe in his hand. "Lad, I need to give you this..."

Aiden shook his head and backed up. "That's not the enzyme, Beckett. You're supposed to give me a shot of the Enzyme. I need it, you promised me..."

Carson shook his head, his hands shaking a bit as he approached the younger man. "Look, son, this has to be done."

"You're trying to kill me!" Aiden gasped, clutching his chest and backing up further.

"I'm not trying to kill you, this is a mild sedative mixed with some stimulants, it's supposed to mimick the..."

"You're trying to SEDATE me? I don't need to be sedated, I'm FINE!" Aiden practically screamed, his voice shrill, part terrified and hysterical, and part angry. "I don't need to be sedated just give me the enzyme, doc!" He lunged forward, suddenly, grabbing Carson and wresting the syringe out of his grasp, holding the doctor around the throat and pointing the syringe at Carson's eye.

Everyone froze for a moment, terrified that he would do something crazy and stupid and horrific, and then McKay stepped into the room and shot him, the bullet tearing through his hand and sending the syringe clattering over the floor and underneath a bed.

Chaos errupted, Aiden screamed and clutched his hand, the orderlies immediately pouncing on him. He shouted angrily, shoving them away from him. Merideth leapt forward and grabbed his left arm (the injured arm) to restrain - okay, to delay - him, and he turned on her furiously. "Dont TOUCH me." He yelled, prying her fingers from his forearm with wild-eyed determination.

He didn't break any of them, which should have said something about how hard he was trying not to hurt her even in his pain-and-adrenaline filled craze, but Merideth grabbed his right hand and tried to stop him. "Stop it, Aiden, you have to _stop_."

He shoved her, suddenly, her arm making a sickening wet noise as her shoulder slammed against the wall, a slightly hollow snap telling her that something had broken. Pain blossomed all over her right side, white-hot and blinding for a second, and she blinked away stars and sunburts and a constellation of supernovas before her vision returned properly, only slightly woozy from the pain.

Carson and McKay wrestled the struggling Lieutenant to the ground, and he finally collapsed, unresisting, after they gave him three tranquilizers.

Merideth didn't bother to hide the tears dripping down her face, as she sat with her back against the wall, shoulder probably dislocated and a strange, heavy ache in her chest. She wrapped her good arm around her knees and sobbed quietly, while Carson ordered the medical team around and tried to clean up the blood that had dripped over his infirmary floor.

McKay walked over to her awkwardly, before crouching down beside her and carefully wrapping an arm around her waist, helping her up and over to the examining table. "Look..." He said, clearly not knowing what to say.

"How the hell am I going to help him?" She asked, suddenly furious. "They knew I wouldn't turn down the chance, and they wanted me here badly enough to use him as bait. But how the hell am I going to help him, if I don't have any time?"

McKay stared at her.

"Your shoulder is dislocated." A nurse told her. "You may have a broken rib, as well. I would also like to have this arm X-Rayed."

Merideth took a deep breath and nodded. "Just fix it so I can go back to my research."

McKay laughed, suddenly. "You are some peice of work, you know that? You just had your arm torn from it's socket, were thrown up against a wall, saw a man shot by one of your coworkers, and you only want to get back to your research?"

Merideth would have shrugged, if the nurse hadn't suddenly decided to re-locate her dislocated shoulder, and instead let out a small gasp of pain. The world went dark for a second and she almost lost consciousness, but a few short breaths later the pain was almost gone. "You are forgetting, Dr. McKay, that my research involved making sure that young man doesn't need to attack anyone else, or do something this stupid again. My research means that the SGC won't order you to shoot to kill." Again, she added mentally.

"Huh." He gave her an appraising look, and then left the infirmary.

Merideth winced as one of the nurses walked her home, feeling an unmistakable sense of deja vu at this repetition of her first day on Atlantis. Then, Aiden hadn't known or trusted her, and had picked her up one-handed by the throat. He had been so scared and broken, then... but now, he was so much worse.

So very much worse, and she was running out of time. They were both running out of time.


	5. Mostly Unspoken Bond

Author's Note: I would like to apologise for any spelling mistakes in this chapter. Note, I am Canadian so I'm using the Canadian (or, British) spellings of words such as "Colour" or "Honour". I am also typing this without the aid of a spellchecker OR beta reader, so if there are any mistakes, please tell me. I will fix them, and be grateful. Very, _very_ grateful.

PS: If anything in this chapter (or future chapters) is incredibly offensive to the residents of the USA who actively support their government, please keep in mind that this is an alternate reality where the United States Air Force accidentally stumbled across an Ancient Device that allows near-instantaneous between solar systems and galaxies. If you can believe that, then you can believe that the corresponding US government is _not perfect_.

* * *

Chapter Five: _Mostly-Unspoken Bond_

* * *

Waking up in the morning was not a pleasant experience. Merideth felt stiff and sore, and her shoulder was covered in a very... colourful-looking bruise. 

Thirty minutes in a hot shower was a mixture between bliss and agony, and she got out slowly, a little less sore than she was when she woke up. Clothes were more difficult, because her shoulder was swollen and she couldn't move it that well. A little bit of maneuvering, and she managed to pull on a thin button-up blouse, and a pair of sweats.

Her lab was full of McKay's staff when she got there. They were running too and fro, waving sheets of calculations and shouting for attention. McKay stood in the centre of the chaos, hands crossed over his chest, scowling at a computer screen. "This is so very, very wrong." He said in a gentle voice. "You are all so incredibly _wrong_. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

"There was a spike in the-"

"Yes, yes, I am perfectly aware of the fluctuations in the outflow. The problem, of course, is that you were supposed to REGULATE that outflow, and therefore there shouldn't have been a spike at all! Did you think when I said _regulate_, it was my secret code for _watch it explode_?"

Merideth watched McKay, impressed with his ability to shout really loudly, wave his arms around, and yet still accomplish more in an hour than most scientists on Earth managed in a week. Although, on Earth, they probably also used some of that time to sleep, eat, and spend time with their families. On Atlantis, you slept and ate in your lab, and your lab assistants _were_ your family.

Jameson and two other assitants were in her section of the lab, carefully documenting the last day's results and organizing everything according to her very specific system. "You're not going to work today, are you? Please tell me you're taking the day off."

Merideth almost shrugged, but just thinking about it sent a spasm of pain through her right shoulder. Instead, she carefully shook her head. "I was just going to look over a few things. No serious work today."

Jameson made a rude sound. "Right. I know what that means."

"What?"

"I'm not stupid, Dr. M." He said pointedly. "Your version of _'taking it easy'_ is somewhere between McKay's _'we need this ten seconds ago'_ and _'for the love of god, do it **right** and do it **right** **now**, or we're all going to die horrible deaths'_."

Merideth laughed. "I actually mean it, today." She looked across the semi-spacious room at the many minions McKay had running around in terror. "I don't think I'll be able to concentrate on anything." She admitted.

"Why don't you toss out this crap?" Jameson asked her, rolling his eyes. "If it didn't work, why does it matter?"

"Because it's interesting. I might want to do some follow-up." She replied. "Not to mention, it's great for anyone who may want to repeat these experiments and verify our results."

"You suck, Doctor M." He stuck his tongue out at her - very mature - and then put away the files he'd been updating.

"Stop! STOP! What are you doing with that? Don't touch that!" McKay shouted at a very scared-looking botanist, who merely shifted her grip on the peice of Ancient gagetry she held. "Give that back!"

"I need it!" She squeaked.

Merideth, Jameson, and the assistants - she really needed to learn their names - stared in awe at her. McKay was giving her his Glare of Death, and she looked as if she might faint.

"Put. It. Back." McKay growled - he actually _growled_ - and the frightened scientist turned almost purple before she hesitantly took a step backwards and replaced it. "When it is ready, I will give it to the Botany Lab. Until then, _stay the hell out of here_."

Smiling, Merideth turned back to her assistants. Thing One wasn't meeting her eye, so she tried to remember what he'd screwed up recently. "You. Where are the notes on experiment 3-4-2? You were supposed to have that to me two days ago." He scurried off, looking vaguely ill. Perhaps he'd lost the results? That wasn't good.

Thing Two was fidgeting with the top button on her blouse, which looked as if it were about to fall off. Fortunately, the damn thing was buttoned up to her neck, so it wasn't as if she were in any danger of exposing herself. "Lietenant Ford's latest brain scan." She instructed Thing Two, who nodded and immediately left, presumably to go to the infirmary and ask the good doctor for Aiden's latest scan.

Jameson smiled at her. "You know what you need, sweetheart?"

"I need you to stop calling me sweetheart." She snapped at him.

"Right. You need coffee, m'dear." He grinned at her as if he had a secret.

"What?" She asked, cranky and sore and not liking the look on his face.

"You don't just need normal coffee." He handed her the mug that he'd been hiding behind him. "You need good coffee."

"I brought good coffee." She said absently, bringing the cup to her lips. "This isn't good coffee, this is..." _amazingly good coffee. Beyond delicous, it was strong and had the slightest hint of hazelnut and vanilla, this was gourmet coffee, this was..._ she froze, suddenly, taking another sip. This was _McKay's_ coffee, the kind he'd craved and apparently bribed the _Asgard_ to beam it aboard the Daedalus and bring him an unhealthy amount, cleverly disguised as amunitions.

Merideth licked her lips and took another sip, because surely this was a scorching-hot version of caffienated ambrosia, and she was not giving it back. She snuck a look at McKay, who was continuing his reign of terror over the rest of the lab, ruling with an iron fist. Leaving his coffeepot _unguarded_, of all things. She took another heavenly sip, and tried to savour it because this was the only cup of this coffee she would ever get to drink.

"Moyers!" McKay yelled.

Merideth experienced a moment of pure terror, because she was _drinking his coffee_, and then a moment of delight, because McKay remembered her name, and that meant he thought she'd be around for a while, and then she went back to terror, because he was _yelling_ and even she ,with her stony silences and icy-cold glares was inherently terrified of McKay. He stalked over to her side of the lab, poking a finger in her direction, and Merideth opened her mouth to apologise because it was Jameson who'd stolen the coffee, anyways...

"Why aren't you in bed?" McKay demanded. "Do I need to remind you that you were _physically assaulted_ by a member of the US Military yesterday? The only one, in fact, who happens to have _super-human strength_?"

"Um." If this wasn't about the coffee, she probably shouldn't bring his attention to it by taking another sip. Although, if she didn't finish it quickly, he might smell it...

"Because if I did have to remind you, that would mean you are experiencing memory loss, and I should have Carson take a look at YOUR head." McKay pointed at wildly, at a chair. "Sit! Sit, finish that mugful of my ridiculously _expensive_ and _wonderful_ coffee, and then pour yourself another and get OUT of this lab. I don't care if you spend the day _weapons-training_ with the marines or staring out at amphibious life forms in the _ocean_, just get OUT and do NOT, under _any circumstances_, attempt to _work_ today."

She wasn't sure what had just happened, so Merideth sat in the appointed chair and sipped at her coffee.

"I asked him." Jameson said, looking at her face and trying not to laugh. "I mean, I may be a crazy military grunt, but even I wouldn't steal coffee from McKay."

She nodded. "Smart thinking."

Finishing her coffee, she poured herself another mug and then added a spoonful of sugar, stirring it quickly and then walking from the lab with the full mug in her hand.

Lieutenant Aiden Ford was lurking in the hallway, a guilty, slightly haunted look on his face. One look at him told Merideth that he was having a very, very bad day. Not even starting-to-crash bad, this was the-withdrawl-is-getting-worse bad.

"Doc?" He asked, eyes wide and a little wild. "Is it okay if I talk to you for a minute?"

"Of course, Aiden." Merideth gestured towards the mess hall with her mug of coffee. "I was going to get a bite to eat. You can join me if you'd like."

"I..." He stared at her, at the dark bruises which were visible on her arm, the fading bruises around her throat a reminder of their first meeting. "I'm real sorry, Doc."

"I know, Aiden."

He took a step closer, but still left a huge amount of space between them. "You've been real nice to me, y'know? Not like a bunch of other people. Even... Even Dr. Beckett sometimes treats me like a freak."

Merideth snorted. "He treats you like a patient, Aiden. He doesn't think you're a freak."

"He doesn't treat me like a person. I mean, he does, but he treats me like there's something wrong with me."

_There is something wrong with you._ Merideth thought.

"You've been real nice... and I don't wanna hurt you." Aiden continued, looking sorrowful. "I didn't wanna hurt you, even when I first met you and I really didn't wanna hurt you last night, things just got kinda outta control and..."

"Aiden..." Merideth took a step closer to him, and then two more, gently laying her hand on his arm (although, it hurt, because she had to use her right hand and the shoulder was throbbing painfully). "I understand that you were a little bit... upset, last night. But the withdrawl from the Wraith Enzyme is fucking with your mind. It gets worse every time, and I can't have you dependent on it." Before he opened his mouth to respond, she continued. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you don't need the Enzyme, Aiden. Although, I might let you keep your superpowers, if you can demonstrate that you will use them wisely."

He blinked at her, uncomprehending. "Keep my superpowers?"

"You're in the military, Aiden. My main assignment is to help you. But let's not kid ourselves, the second I do, your government is going to want me to develop a way to mimick your strength, speed, and endurance, without the negative side effects."

"So..." he struggled to put the words together. "I'd be just like I am now?"

"Just the same, physically. But mentally, your mind would be clearer. You'd be able to think logically, make strategic decisions..."

Ford smiled, suddenly. "But, I'd still be... y'know, the way I am now?"

"That's right, Aiden."

He grinned at her, happy. It was disconcerting because his happiness wasn't comforting at all, it was eerie and a little bit scary. But that wasn't his fault, he was mentally unstable. Even if she did figure out a way to keep his physical abilities the same, without the mental side-effects, Merideth decided she would never give that secret to his government. They already _had_ the mental side-effects.

He left, leaving Merideth to wander towards the Mess Hall. She grabbed a breakfast tray, loaded up with the remainder of the wonderful things from home, bacon and eggs and home fries and whole wheat toast with strawberry jam, and ate her breakfast while sipping her very good coffee.

The rest of the day passed quickly. The rest of the morning Meredith spent playing poker in the Mess hall with eight of the Marines, who collectively kicked her ass until she raked in a good-sized pot near the end, which let her split even, minus a small Snickers bar and some Twizzlers. After Lunch, she tricked one of the nursing staff - a physiotherapist - into giving her a back massage, and then she returned to her quarters, much more relaxed than she'd been since arriving in Atlantis. A hot bath and a good book were all she had planned for the rest of the day, so she curled up on her bed and started reading.

There was a quiet knock on the door, and Merideth told Atlantis to open it instead of getting up to check who was at the door. Radek walked into the room, and then waved a bottle of his special Atlantean Drain Cleaner at her. "You look as if you could use a drink." He said pointedly.

Merideth shrugged. "It couldn't hurt." She produced two small glasses and poured herself a very small amount of the 'vodka', tipping considerably more into Radek's glass. She took a very tiny sip as she handed him his glass. "Thanks, Radek."

"It is no problem." He grimaced as he sipped his own drink. "I must stop making this."

Before the conversation could go any further, there was another knock at the door. It opened immediately after, to show a rather rueful-looking Colonel Sheppard. "Uh, sorry, and stuff... Atlantis just likes to open doors for me. She doesn't understand the concept of privacy."

Merideth saw Teyla, the lovely golden-skinned alien woman, lurking behind him. "Why don't you two come in?" She asked, gesturing with her good hand, careful not to spill any of her drink.

"Doctor Moyers." Teyla entered the room and dipped into a tiny, polite bow, holding out a glass bottle for Merideth. "We have not yet been introduced. I am Teyla Emmagan, of the Athosian people. I hope you will accept this gift of some Athosian wine, because it will be more pleasing to your tastebuds than whatever Doctor Zelenka has given you." She shot the Czech a nasty look, which clearly said _Why are you torturing that woman with your rotgut moonshine?_

Merideth smiled and thanked her, completely shocked, as she had never spoken to the (rather intimidating) Athosian woman before. Teyla stole her glass, poured the liquid into Radek's (this look clearly said _It is punishment enough that you be forced to drink this travesty previously inflicted on my new friend._) and then refilled it with some of the Athosian wine.

"We... uh... wanted to thank you..." Colonel Sheppard mumbled. He smiled at her, a tiny boyish smile that reminded her of a naughty two-year-old.

"For all that you have done to help Lieutenant Ford." Teyla adds, glaring at him. (This look is more subtle, it is mainly _'Stop being an idiot' _but with hints of _'At least he's trying.'_ and _'He's adorable when he's stupid'_)

There was another knock on the door. "Come in!" Radek yelled.

This time, it was Rodney McKay who stuck his head in. "Huh. Figures you guys would do something like this and not tell me." He said pointedly before entering the room. "Have they already given you the speech?"

Merideth stared at her boss, shocked, and then shook her head. "So far, no one's said more than a sentence."

"Right. We're all very grateful to you, for helping Ford, even though he's an idiot junkie. Of course, he's _our_ idiot junkie, and he did save my life a bunch of times, and even though he's furious with me and will never speak to me again because I keep _shooting_ him, I'm glad that you're here and that eventually he's going to be okay. And by 'eventually', I mean 'soon'. Right?" McKay narrowed his eyes at her, studying her as if he expected her to lie to him.

"I'll do my best." Merideth responded.

Teyla shot him a look - _That was not the speech I had intended for her to receive, and you will suffer for this, later _- and then nodded her agreement.

Colonel Sheppard shrugged his agreement as well. "What he said, but nicer."

Radek cleared his throat. "Hello Rodney."

"Shut up, Zelenka."

"That is not very nice, Rodney. We are friends, yes? You would like a drink? I have brought-"

"Don't wave your battery acid at me, Radek. I happen to have brought real refreshment with me." He produced a bottle, which he offered to Merideth. "Much better than the-"

Teyla interrupted. "I have brought her a bottle of Athosian wine, Dr. McKay. I'm sure that is much more pleasant than..."

Merideth stared at the bottle of ridiculously expensive whiskey in one hand, and at the glass of Athosian wine in the other. She took an experimental sip, ignoring the conversation around her. It tasted like honey and mint, and made her feel all glowy and warm as it went down. "We should just try all of them." She suggested, suddenly. "I mean, we currently have the best of Earth, Atlantis, and the Athosians in one room, it's our duty to try and compare them objectively."

She sat on her bed, Radek beside her on the left and Teyla on the right. McKay grabbed her chair, and Sheppard slumped onto the floor, resting his head on McKay's knee. "Which one first?" Radek asked. "Not my vodka, I have already had some of the vodka." As if to demonstrate, he finished his glass and showed everyone.

McKay opened the whiskey. "I've been waiting to try this. I stole it from Elizabeth the first week we were here." He admitted.

They all glared at him.

"What? She has three more!"

The rest of the night was spent in her room, drinking from the bottle and passing it around as they shared stories, all brought together by the mostly-unspoken bond they had in Lieutenant Ford.


	6. Wasn't What She Expected

**Dr. Moyers, Neuroscientist**

Author's Note: I am a horrible, horrible person. As has been pointed out to me, it has been a very long time since I last updated this story. As it was… y'know, lacking in any sort of definite (or even indefinite) ending, I apologize a thousand fold. I also, of course, feel it necessary to point out that I have a horrifying feeling of déjà vu. That being said, be thankful you're not reading this in the HP fandom, 'cause I probably wouldn't have updated this in a few YEARS. You're lucky.

PS: An additional apology is for the spelling/grammar. I spellchecked this, but I had some issues with my verb tenses going from past to present and back again - if something off, tell me, I promise I'll appreciate it. Oh, and once again, I'm sorry I haven't updated this in... oh god, it's been a year. A year minus five days, but that's still a long time. I am SO SORRY. I promise to have the next chapter out... uh... let's say before the end of June. If I lie, you have permission to email me and harass me about it.

* * *

Chapter Six: _It wasn't what she expected._

* * *

It was four-fifteen in the morning. Meredith woke up and looked around her. The alarm clock by her bed was glowing quietly, nothing else made a sound or moved or even provided the smallest amount of light. She stood up, told Atlantis to give her enough light to see by, and then pulled on a clean-ish t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and slipping into a pair of flat shoes. _Nerve damage._ She thought. _That's the problem, of course, because even with the obvious issues like the excess of serotonin and epinephrine and the obvious distortion in the dopaminergic system, it's really just about the nerve damage. And that's what the problem is, of course. Nerve damage_.

She felt jittery and excited. _Nerve damage,_ she thought. _God, why didn't I think of this before?_ She stumbled through the hallway towards her lab. It was four-seventeen in the morning, or at least that's what Atlantis kindly informed her when she asked, but she wasn't really surprised that McKay was there, typing contentedly into his computer. Meredeith didn't think that he slept. He was superhuman.

Fortunately, he didn't bother to talk to her. He didn't seem to notice that she was there, so Meredith didn't bother making her presence known. She sat down in front of her lab laptop, and immediately opened the scans of Lieutenant Ford's brain._ This isn't enough,_ she thought, connecting her computer to the Atlantis network and sending a secure request to the infirmary for all of his scans, ever, especially those on file from before his addiction to the wraith enzyme. _Neurotransmitter,_ she corrected herself. _It isn't an enzyme, which is a misnomer._

She started to scribble down equations.

Two hours later, she'd managed to compile a list of necessary equipment, and had run fourteen simulations, none of which had been successful but all of which had given her an amazing insight into what she did need to make it work. _I can do this,_ Meredith thought. _I can fix him. Holy shit. _She grinned at her laptop, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline. Her heartbeat sped up, and she continued to type. She kept meticulous notes on every single one of her experiments, not only in her lab notebook but also in her laptop, as well as personal notes which she kept separate in order to be able to jot down what she personally wanted to continue researching and where she thought everything would lead to, as well as what had inspired each train of thought.

She typed and wrote and scribbled down diagrams, ran back to her room to grab a hard drive which had a lot of her notes from the Asgard on it. She typed faster and faster until her eyes started watering and her fingers stumbled over the keys. She grabbed the cup of coffee next to her computer, realized that it was hot, and then looked up.

Thing One and Thing Two were sitting nearby, one of whom had just set the cup of coffee down next to her. "How long have you guys been here?" She asked.

"About three hours." Thing Two replied, looking nervous and fiddling with her too-tight collar.

"Get me something to eat." Meredith said, turning back to her computer.

Jameson showed up a while later. Meredith looked up, realized he was staring at her, and then snapped.

"What the hell are you staring at?" She hissed.

"You've been sitting there for the past six hours." He said. "You have not stood up in all of that time, and that is only as far as we know, because you were here before I got here, and I arrived at nine-thirty. So you haven't used the washroom, or stretched your legs, and your shoulder and back are going to hate you at the end of the day. Oh, and you've also managed to scare McKay away."

"Bullshit." She replied. "Have I eaten?"

"You made a muffin disappear this morning, but I don't think you've had anything since them. You haven't touched your lunch." He pointed at the tray on her desk, which Meredith hadn't noticed. Fortunately, the food wasn't the kind that would suffer for being eaten cold.

She forced herself to stand, feeling her legs tremble and threaten to give out. She hadn't noticed the cramp in her side or the stiffness in her back muscles, but now she did, so she glared at Jameson and ordered him around until she felt a little bit better. She chewed contemplatively as she at her food, standing up and pacing to make sure that the blood was flowing properly through her limbs. Her neck was stiff and sore, but that hardly mattered.

"McKay's off-world." Jameson said cheerfully. "As a matter of fact, he made a few snide comments at you, but you basically ignored him. I thought you were being tough and brave and was all set to congratulate you, but it's pretty obvious that you were just off in your own little world. Does this mean that little Aiden is going to be okay?"

"Basically, it means that he's going to be okay. Whether or not he'll be able to stay in the military or if I'm just fixing him up for a nice and tidy court-martial, I do not know, but I have a fairly good idea of what we need to do to… you know, save his brain." Meredith hummed contentedly as she at a small cupful of butterscotch pudding. "This was kind of good. Get me another cup of coffee and someone from the infirmary down here, I need to ask them if this surgery is plausible or I need to find another way to do this."

She didn't spend too much time talking with the quiet little doctor – polite, but entirely too nervous for Meredith to like her – and quickly returned to her notes. She finished her simulations, which were now perfect, and then went over a full-body scan of the nervous tissue in Aiden's body, quickly copying it onto her laptop and continuing her simulations. All were successful. All were complete and quick and she almost screamed with excitement. Instead, she began to write a detailed summary report. _Paperwork,_ she thought happily. _This is my favourite kind of paperwork. The kind that says "I did it."_

It took her about two hours, and then Meredith finished typing up her summary notes, and then hit save on her laptop. _Thank god_, she thought to herself, feeling a smile spread across her face. _Thank freakin' god_.

She grabbed a notebook and began detailing her results again, this time as a hard copy to give to Carson – he seemed to be the only person who could decipher both her handwriting and her shorthand. She hummed as she scribbled.

It wasn't perfect - naturally, the treatment program would have to be altered to allow Aiden's body to react, but the point was that she had something to work from. Finally. After tinkering with six different ancient scanning machines, after having Radek - and even McKay, at one point - inventing new computer programs for her to use to compile the information from those scanning machines, after fiddling with cocktails of neurotransmitters and synthetic drugs and even a few heavy metals, after nights of no sleep, of days with no progress, after being assaulted and having her good arm abused in too many different ways.

_Finally._

Finishing her note, she buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

Of course, that's when the alarms started shrieking, and suddenly the headset she'd been forced to wear was squawking obscenely, hundreds of different voices demanding to know what was happening.

"Everybody shut up!" McKay screamed, his voice tiny and trembling slightly with static. Unsurprisingly, there was immediate radio silence. "Moyers, get to the jumper bay. Med team, too. And for the love of god, people, stop reacting like this every -" he was breathing heavily, like he was yelling and running at the same time - "single-" and Meredith wouldn't even have been surprised if he was also doing calculations or something else important - "time we have an emergency!"

Meredith was out of her seat and halfway to the jumper bay before she realized that she had no idea what was going on, she hadn't brought any tools or supplies except for the pen she held tightly in her left hand. She continued running - running, because they had learned to leave her the hell alone except for when something involved Aiden, and god, she couldn't bear it if something had happened to him. Not now, not when she could actually help him.

She arrived in the jumper bay only to see McKay in full off-world gear, holding a P-90 and looking intimidating. He was shoving equipment into the 'jumper and he barely acknowledged her presence. "Are you wearing shoes?"

She nodded, hoping that this situation wasn't what it seemed. "Uh, McKay..." She mumbled, spying a very, very tall, very, very armed person lurking in the 'jumper.

"Look, we're working with a very, very limited timeframe." McKay snapped, still working. "So shut up and get your ass in the 'jumper, and Ronon's going to do something that will probably seem like assault but will, in fact, be him getting you ready for the field. Go. Don't question. Ever."

Neither man paid any attention to her. Ronon – for he had been the one lurking in the jumper – immediately grabbed her and actually dragged her into the jumper. His hands – huge, large, kind of scary but surprisingly gentle hands – ripped off her lab coat, her bracelets, managed to remove her earrings and necklace. He pulled off her ring, her belt, and then started strapping a tight-fitting vest over her t-shirt.

The med team arrived a few seconds later, and then Meredith found herself shoved into a seat. McKay was at the controls, and the Jumper lurched – Meredith held her breath for a second because she'd heard stories about McKay's ability to pilot a jumper and she was not reassured, not reassured at all – and then they were in the air. The Med team was in the back, quickly shoving supplies into duffel bags and looking very professional. McKay looked grim as he dialed the address of the planet they were visiting.

Meredith felt numb. And slightly nauseous.

"We've got maybe another seventeen minutes." Ronon rumbled. He'd finished strapping her into the vest, and was now strapping more things – she really, really hoped none of them were weapons – onto or around her. "After that, people are going to start dying, and you're going to have to stop it."

No pressure or anything. Meredith thought. My first time off-world. People are going to die. If she'd ever been the type to faint or scream or have fits of hysteria, now would have been the time to do it. Sadly, Meredith wasn't any of those things so she forced herself to breathe. Breathe in, breath out. Inhale, exhale. Do your god damn job, Meredith, she told herself. That is all these people are asking you to do.

"So he's stuck." McKay said. His voice was completely expressionless, which was one of the scariest things Moyers had ever heard. McKay was always supposed to be angry or irritated or happy. "He's stuck, because the dumb shit thought that he could make one of the local prophecies come true and save everybody from the Wraith, but of course there's no way of stopping it once things have been put in motion and there isn't enough power so it's draining him. He's stuck, we can't get into the room, we can't get him out of the interface which is why you're here, and if we don't stop it soon it's going to kill him, and after it kills him it won't have anything controlling it and then it's going to overload and possibly kill everything on this planet. I think that's about all the information on the situation that you're going to need to know. Ronon, show her the scans of the outpost, familiarize her as much as possible with the tech."

Ronon handed her a tablet. Meredith took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She felt a little bit self-conscious, and a lot surprised that no one was yelling at her to look, but what she's about to do is going to take a some concentration, and she hasn't done it in a a while. She isn't sure she can do it at all without getting nauseous. She forced herself to inhale slowly, slowly.

First she blocked out the sounds around her, ignored the slight vibrations from the jumper, the too-tight feeling of the vest strapped around her ribs. She blocked out everything, everything she could possibly notice, until there is silence and stillness and only her mind and her hand.

Meredith opened her eyes, grabbed the tablet, and hit next, and next, and next again, looking at each picture, each diagram, each scan for zero-point-one-five seconds. It didn''t matter. She has it stored, in her mind. She looked at everything they have and then she closed her eyes again and goes through everything one more time.

"We're here. Twelve minutes sixteen seconds. Move." Ronon grabbed her arm and dragged her with him, and she stumbled a bit before her legs start running, seemingly without her permission or her control.

Meredith doesn't know where she is – her first time on another planet and she hasn't even been able to look up at the sky. She runs as fast as she can, and then she's inside, running even faster, and Ronon shoved her against a wall and then there was a small explosion that sent her flying backwards.

When she opens her eyes, Ronon's pushing buttons in an attempt to get a door open, and swearing. Meredith wonders how long she was unconscious, but it couldn't have been longer than a few seconds. Dizzy, as if her head isn't attached to the rest of her, Meredith stood, opened her eyes and _shoves_ at the outpost. There is a brief second or two of resistance, and then it stops and the doors slid open. Ronon didn't even look at her, but grabs her arm again and forces her to move with him.

McKay is nowhere to be seen, and Meredith doesn't have a clue where the med team has gone. It doesn't matter. "Ten minutes, fourteen seconds." Ronon said, running down the hallway.

Meredith ran. Inside, she was swearing, hating the fact that she wasn't wearing proper shoes; the damn things were practically slippers and were definitely not meant for running. _I'm going to have blisters,_ she thought hysterically. _My muscles are all going to be so sore… oh my god, I need to stop thinking about stupid useless shit when I have a job to do and people's lives are in the balance. My life is in the balance. Oh, shit, shit, shit, we are so fucked._

She wasn't calm, but that didn't matter. She had a job to do.

Meredith grabbed a screwdriver from her vest, grateful that they'd outfitted her with tools that she knew how to use – and pulled apart a console. She pulls out crystals, tossing them to Ronon, who has stopped, catching them expertly and tucking them into his excess of pockets. She crosses wires, she diverts energy to redundant secondary drives, and she does everything she can to bleed off as much energy as she can from the damn outpost before it explodes.

Meredith could hear screams. She ignored them, too.

"Nine minutes." Ronon said.

Meredith stood up and looked around the hallway. None of the other consoles were linked to anything she could use, but there was a transporter at the far end of the hallway. She ran towards it. "Make sure nobody uses these." She says to Ronon as she dismantles the side panel. Behind her, she is vaguely aware of Ronon repeating the message into his radio, the radio she had forgotten she was wearing. She removed a few crystals from the transporter, and then yanked on a console, breaking it in half and taking the smallish device at the bottom. Standing up again, she turned the dial on her radio so that she was keyed to the team channel instead of the Atlantis one. It crackles to life and then she heard McKay's voice again, and the doctor, and the screaming was a lot louder through her earpiece.

She pushed another crystal into the panel and stepped back. The machinery emits a loud-pitched whine, and then groans to life, doing nothing useful but wasting a lot of energy. It won't do much, but they might give her another minute, maybe.

"I need to get to the main control room." She said.

"We can't get there." Ronon replied, as he pointed down the hallway.

Meredith ran, ignoring the burning in her chest. She pushed past Ronon, pushing at the outpost with the mild interface she'd managed to make, forcing doors open as she runs towards the screaming and the smell of burning flesh.

It wasn't what she expected. She wouldn't have been surprised if she'd seen Sheppard strapped to a table, scary aliens leering over his screaming body. Instead, she saw him half-standing, his hands over his face, wires running from the panel behind him into his ears, his nose, his mouth, and his eyes. He was not screaming. Teyla was screaming, crying, and she was the only thing keeping Sheppard upright. Her foot, braced against the wall, was a bloody and disgusting mess, and that was where the faint sizzling sound and the smell of burning skin was coming from. Her hands were wrapped around her teammate, holding him upright; some of the wires had already pushed their way _through_ her, through her bloody arms and her side, to get to him.

Meredith felt sick.

McKay wasn't there, but he must have been nearby. He was doing the same thing that Meredith had been doing a few seconds before… wasting energy, pushing it out of the outpost at incredibly rates in order to buy them more time. "Moyers! Get him out of there!" He yelled. She could hear him through the wall, he was somewhere else in the facility, but linked to her through the radio and through the sound of his voice and Teyla's screams.

_I have a job to do._ Meredith thought, but she was frozen in place because there was blood and burning and Teyla was still screaming, and Meredith was supposed to stop it but she couldn't think of how.

"Moyers!" McKay was yelling at her, his voice that special kind of panicked, and it had never been like that before, not when he was yelling at _her. _She could hear him with her ears and through the radio, although the radio version sounded bigger and scarier and far more desperate. "_Get him out of there._"

Meredith couldn't move, couldn't think.

_What do I do?_ She asked herself. She could see a pool of blood… blood, Teyla's blood and Sheppard's blood, mingling and spreading over the ground.

Meredith couldn't breathe. Her hands shook. Everyone was going to die, and it was going to be her fault.


	7. Something Unheard Of

**Dr. Moyers, Neuroscientist**

Author's Note: I am not the type of person who dedicates chapters to people I don't know. However, if I were that kind of person, I'm sure that I would have dedicated this chapter to Lakewater, who deserves it for yelling at me when I didn't update; and also to Yanna, who did the same thing. This chapter is... of a different style than usual. I promise to refrain from any more side plots. The science in this section is more than dodgy - it's entirely fictional

* * *

Chapter Seven: _Something Unheard Of._

The blow took her by surprise, and Meredith found herself staring at the ground, dazed. She felt a hand on her arm, and then Ronon jerked her around to face him.

He hit her again.

That was when she realized that he was talking to her. "Do _something_!" He roared.

Looking around, Meredith noticed the interface console a few feet away from where Sheppard and Teyla were. She stumbled towards it, feeling as if her feet were very far away, unattached to her. She pushed a button at random, and then another, before she managed to access the outpost database. This was more familiar territory, so she pushed a few more buttons and then managed to bring up a strange sequence of code, scrolling across the small screen too fast for her to read. She tried to slow the scrolling, tried to remember the Ancient lessons she'd taken, tried to figure out what she needed to do in order to free Sheppard.

Her breathing sounded unnaturally loud. Meredith realized that the room was quiet, which meant that Teyla had stopped screaming. Looking over her shoulder, she could see Teyla slumped forward, pressed against Sheppard on one side, Ronon on his other side. She was holding on to Ronon as if he were the only thing in the universe.

Meredith felt like an intruder.

She turned back to the console, scrolled through the code, and tried to find a way to force the interface to release.

Her radio crackled every time McKay spoke, and he was always talking. She had seven minutes, now eight; she needed to hurry – if only she had any idea what to do. She read the code again and tried to ignore her time limit. She understood Ancient technology, she'd done her Master's with the Asgard, and she had finished side-by-side PhD's and her MD as well. She knew how to fix this, she knew, she just needed to remember… remember how.

She told the outpost to let him go.

That didn't work.

She tried to leech power from the interface itself in order to force it to release him, but he was wired into it now, it just sucked more energy out of him, faster and faster, until he screamed in pain, his words garbled and angry. She stopped.

The radio crackled again. "Six minutes." McKay told her.

She pushed at the outpost, wondering how exactly the interface worked, and then everything clicked. She just needed to take it apart – "McKay, I need more time!" She said into the radio as she used a screwdriver as a crowbar to pry off a panel.

"You have five minutes and forty-nine seconds."

"I need… seven." She said as she rummaged through her pockets until she found a penknife and a tiny blowtorch. "Ronon, I need those crystals I gave you."

Meredith moved as fast as she could, but she didn't know if this was going to work – it probably wouldn't – and she didn't have enough time. They were counting down the seconds until John Sheppard died, and then they would have twenty more before the outpost overloaded and they _all_ died.

She could feel her hands moving; assembling pieces of broken technology into what would hopefully disrupt the interface enough for Sheppard to remove himself. It was strange how disconnected everything was, as if she were outside of her body, staring inwards, looking at everything around her.

"Moyers." McKay was beside her, not on the radio, although she couldn't remember him arriving. Behind her, she could hear the med team assisting Ronon, sounding horrified and helpless.

Her hands started to shake, so McKay took over, apparently able to read her mind and finish putting it together for her. They were running out of time, and it wasn't really adequate – but if it worked, it might weaken the mental interface, even if it couldn't kill it.

McKay quickly hooked it up to the console. There was no reaction, although there was a brief flickering of the lights. Then, Sheppard groaned, jerked forward, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak.

The wires were holding him still, keeping him silent, but they were also keeping the interface open, so he was still controlling the outpost and preventing it from overloading.

Meredith tried not to think about the people who lived on the planet.

She couldn't cut the wires, because that might kill Sheppard and trigger an overload. They couldn't keep him there, although the reduced interface meant that it was no longer sucking energy out of him.

"What do we do now?" She asked.

McKay stared at her.

"How do we get him out without overloading the station?"

McKay's eyes lit up, his fingers snapped. "Tablet." He ordered, and she handed the small computer over immediately.

He started working, and Meredith had absolutely not idea what he was doing. He typed code too fast for her to follow, quickly pulled out a few crystals, typed madly. She was almost dizzy watching him. He didn't talk, and that was scary, but he looked triumphant.

"You have maybe three minutes." One of the doctors helping hold Sheppard up said quietly. One of the others was giving him an injection. "This might give you a bit of time… but we need to get him back to Atlantis. Now."

McKay started to yell, ordered her around, and Meredith had never been happier to have someone telling her what to do. She obeyed like an automaton, every second stretching forward and lasting an eternity.

She hadn't paid attention, of course, although if she had it probably wouldn't have caught her by surprise. Ronon shouted, and then the med team was strapping Teyla onto a stretcher, and forcing Sheppard to do the same. The wires had retreated, leaving both of them bloody and exhausted but alive.

She turned back to McKay, a smile on her face because she was proud of him and impressed as hell, and then the smile died on her lips and she couldn't breathe, for a second.

McKay was slumped back against the panel.

Wires were wrapped around his arms, sinking into them like coppery veins. His eyes were held open, wires pushing themselves gently under his eyelids as she watched.

"Moyers." He said, sounding calm. "Stop panicking."

She stared at his mouth, because that remained unmolested; it was the same as his mouth had ever been.

"Listen carefully." He said. "You need to find the secondary power module. The primary one is what is causing our problems. You need to find the backup and activate it."

She nodded. "Power module."

"Then I need you to turn off the force shield protecting the reactor core." He continued. "And turn the power strength up as high as you can."

"But." Meredith tried to remember. "That will kill you!"

"That will set the core up to overload." McKay agreed. "And I'm here to force the energy into the shield, instead. If we activate the shield, it will bleed off all the excess energy and prevent the overload from killing everyone on the planet. It'll be fine, just do what I told you. Hurry."

"Activate…" She forced herself to listen. "Activate the secondary power module."

"Go." McKay ordered.

Meredith ran. Back the way they'd come, around a corner, and then another. She managed a mild link with the outpost and asked for directions, which it provided. She ran and ran and ran until she found the room with the backup module, and then she pushed it into place and activated a manual override. She ran from the room towards the reactor core – it wouldn't want to turn off the force shield, because that would guarantee an overload and that was bad. It protested, it forced her through all the error messages and backup sequences it had, and then finally she managed to shut the stupid thing off.

Power, now. She turned a dial, pushed everything up to the highest setting. The alarms screaming at her startled her, but she tried to ignore it. The power was only at thirty-seven percent with the backup module. Even after turning up every dial she could think of, it was at fifty-two percent.

She manually entered figures, telling the stupid thing that it needed to use 500% power and other ridiculous numbers, but it pushed the power up to eighty-three percent. She rerouted power that had been wasted or diverted in order to keep Sheppard conscious. Eighty-six percent.

The room was stifling and humid, it was getting hard to breathe, and so Meredith ran.

She tried to go back to the room where McKay was, but Ronon grabbed her and dragged her towards the exit. The outpost was a blur as they sped by, and then they were outside. Meredith found herself thrown t the floor of the jumper, with the med team looking grim as they stood around Teyla, and Sheppard at the controls, looking weak and desperate and barely conscious as one of the nurses attempted to dislodge him from the seat.

She looked through the windshield, and saw a sparkling, violet shimmer course through the sky, at about the same time a shockwave hit, shoving her across the floor and into a wall.

Ronon looked around to make sure that everyone was okay, and then he force his way out of the jumper and back into the outpost. The jumper was almost eerily silent. Teyla was quiet, conscious but apparently feeling no pain, as she'd been given plenty of morphine.

When Ronon returned, a few minutes later, he had McKay thrown over one shoulder. "Let's go." He said.

McKay was unconscious. Sheppard tried to insist on flying, but Ronon picked him up and pushed him onto a stretcher, letting one of the medics fly the jumper back to Atlantis.

Meredith went through the post-mission chaos in a daze. She didn't listen to the doctor who gave her pills and told her to sleep and get hydrated, didn't listen to Dr Weir's speech, didn't hear the whispers as people watched her walk (limp) through the hallways. She felt raw, she felt numb, so she forced herself to walk to her lab and then she sat down at her desk.

The desk was still littered with papers from earlier. It seemed like a dream, like something that had happened years ago, but no – here it was. Treatment for her one and only patient, Lieutenant Aiden Ford.

"Come, Meredith." A hand on her elbow steered her out of the room. "You need sleep."

She nodded, barely able to recognize her companion. "Thank you, Radek." She mumbled.

Radek put her to bed and tucked her in, forcing her to take her medication, and then he made her drink some tea.

"Is he always like that?" She asked him, and then fell asleep before Radek could answer her.

When she woke up. She was in the infirmary and it was three days later.

"Welcome back to the world of the living." A doctor said to her. She didn't look worried, so Meredith didn't bother asking why she wasn't' in her room anymore.

"My name is Jen." The doctor said. "And there is nothing seriously wrong with you, but your friends checked up on you and you didn't wake up, so they called us. Nothing but exhaustion, mild dehydration, and a bit of an adrenaline crash, though."

Epinephrine, Meredith thought hazily. Possibly norepinephrine as well, and everything hurts, too. She fell asleep again before she could say anything.

She awoke to the sound of Aiden Ford reciting poetry.

"- Not eat the in a house, I will not eat them here or there, I will not eat the anywhere. I do not eat green eggs and ham." He intoned, staring pensively out of the window. "I do not like them, Sam-I-Am."

"You should try Shakespeare." Meredith mumbled.

"I never really liked iambic pentameter, but since you're sick and all, I'll do a little Hamlet for you, doc!" Aiden said, turning towards her and beaming as if she'd just given him a puppy. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous—"

"That isn't necessary. I was being sarcastic!" Meredith said, struggling to sit up.

"—fortune, or to take arms against a sea of sorrows, and by opposing, end them." Aiden's grin widened, but he didn't stop. "To die, to sleep, no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heartache—"

"That's really not necessary—"

"—and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to—"

"I mean, why would you do that?" Meredith demanded. "There are lots of Shakespearean _sonnets_, you know."

"—sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream—"

"And, there are many characters who aren't in love with their mothers and don't have suicidal tendencies either." Meredith said, pointedly.

"Aye!" Aiden agreed, his grin upsized to 'shit-eating' and looking as if he'd won a prize. "There's the rub!"

"I'm going to kill you." Meredith said. She finally managed to sit up, propped up by her excessively comfortable pillows. Really, who knew that all the good ones ended up in the infirmary? She made a mental note to steal a few, later.

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give—"

"I am going to strangle you with my IV." Meredith said calmly.

"—us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."

Meredith glared at him.

Aiden smiled and continued reciting.

As irritating as Hamlet's famous soliloquy was to her ears, Meredith couldn't really help but feel relieved that he was doing so well. Once they managed to fix his eye and replace a few of his fried nerves, the rest of his treatment would be a cakewalk, especially as he seemed to be dealing with his addiction better these days. He was as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she'd ever seen him.

"—of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when him himself might his quietus—"

"I am going to YOUR quietus make, if you do not stop that!" A nurse stormed into the room, pointing an accusing finger at the young lieutenant. "Of all the Shakespeare you could have memorized, why that depressing piece of crap? You are in the infirmary! Have a sense of decorum!"

Aiden threw himself on his knees, dramatically clasping his hands together and gazing up at the nurse in mock-admiration. "But soft!" He declared. "What light from yonder window breaks?"

The nurse snorted derisively, turning to Meredith with a half-smile on her face.

"It is the east, and Jacqueline is the sun!" Aiden said, louder.

"Oh, shut up." Jacqueline said, without malice. She patted hi on the shoulder and then started to check Meredith's vital signs. "Feeling better, sweetie? Doctor Beckett says that you're clear to leave, any time you're strong enough to make it out the door."

"Yeah, thank you." Meredith nodded.

"—fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, are more fair than she."

"The kid—" Jacqueline jerked her head in Aiden's direction. "- has been coming to check on you every couple of hours. Dr. Zelenka, as well." She hummed a bit as she checked Meredith's blood pressure.

"It is my lady! Oh, it is my love! Oh, that she knew she were!" Aiden recited.

"You're fine." Jacqueline announced. "You may want to get some food in your stomach, though; the IV won't help your stomach cramps. Aiden, you make sure she doesn't get herself into any trouble, okay?"

"Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their… Yeah, you don't have to worry; I'll take real good care of her." Aiden promised. "Pinkie swear."

Jacqueline looked mildly confused, but she dutifully pinkie swore. "Now get out." She said, taping a small piece of gauze to the back of Meredith's hand where the IV had been. "And no more Hamlet!" She yelled at Aiden as he helped Meredith into her fluffy yellow robe.

Aiden walked her to her quarters, joking with her the entire time. "I'll see you later, Doc." He said when they arrived at the door. "But if you aren't out in the mess hall in thirty minutes, I'm sending someone in there with a camera."

She snorted and waved him off, eagerly going straight into the shower. She felt a little dizzy, but the heat and the steam helped loosen her muscles enough for her to ignore the ache. Not even ten minutes later, she was dressed, although trembling with exhaustion. She sat on the floor by her bed, trying to muster the energy she needed to walk all the way to the mess.

The door chimed, and then opened. "Dr. Moyers?" Thing Two stepped into the room, looking anxious. Her hair was bound tightly in a French braid, which Meredith thought made her look like an alligator. The blue turtleneck she was wearing was kind of nice, although it was as ill-fitting and conservative as any of her other wardrobe choices. "Do you nee any assistance? I am supposed to help you to the mess hall, if you need."

"That would be nice, actually." Meredith said.

Thing Two – Meredith really, really needed to learn her lab assistants' names – had brought a wheelchair, which was embarrassing on so many levels but also comfortable and not requiring any energy. It didn't really matter because Meredith was ravenous and willing to undergo much more public humiliation in exchange for food, so she didn't complain.

There weren't many people around, although Jameson arrived and sat down with her, as he always did. "You're alive!" He said, loudly. "I wondered, you know."

"Shut up, Jameson." Meredith said, but her heart wasn't in it. Food, oh, god, lovely precious food. _Meatloaf_.

"Sure thing!" He agreed. "So, I hear you had a really good trip off-world!"

"You are a liar." She replied primly, cutting into the meatloaf. Her mouth was already watering. Meatloaf, and peas, and mashed potato-like-things!

"No, really! All the other guys are impressed! They want to know if the stories are true. There's money on this, you know." He said.

Meredith raised an eyebrow at him, but tried not to pay attention to his words. The _meatloaf_ was important, Jameson was not.

"We… you know. We bet on the scientists." Jameson said by way of explanation.

"You are twisted." And, they put butter in the mashed potato-thing! Real butter! "Kind of evil… but if evil didn't have a brain."

"I am a scarecrow of evil." Jameson agreed. "You know, Peterson bet that you'd cry."

She stopped eating. "Cry?"

"Like a little girl." Jameson added. "Like a little girl having a temper tantrum because her mommy wouldn't buy her the dolly she wanted."

"I hate you." She glared.

"I didn't bet on that." He seemed scandalized. "I bet on you doing something unheard of. This, when you think of it, is so vague that I can't believe anybody would bet against me – but there isn't much that could happen off-world that McKay hasn't already done. So I guess it wasn't a bad idea, after all." He frowned.

"That is very vague."

"Unfortunately, you scientists do stuff we haven't heard of all the time, so they later decided that it doesn't count if it's science-y."

She ignored him and drank her glass of milk. The peas and potatoes were very good, although she was hungry enough that even half-cooked oatmeal would have been lovely. She was so happy that she hadn't slept through Meatloaf Day.

"Is it true?" Jameson asked.

Meredith was going to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but then she realized that there were a few more distinctly non-science personnel who were listening in on their conversation. "How many people were betting on my first trip off-world?" She demanded.

It hadn't been an invitation, but seven marines, four airmen, three scientists, and one of the lunch ladies immediately crowded around the table.

"You need lives." She told them.

"You did save the day, right?" A marine asked.

"McKay did that."

The lunch lady collected her money.

"But you helped, right?" A redheaded airman asked, a frown on her face. "I mean, I heard McKay say that you helped."

"Uh, yeah, okay." Meredith was sure that McKay was merely being kind – she'd followed his instructions and hadn't done much else. "I helped."

Jameson, the redheaded airman, and the lunch lady collected money.

"You didn't crack under pressure." Jameson said proudly.

"I froze." She disagreed.

"You came to and helped save the day, though!"

Meredith shrugged in acquiescence. That seemed to be enough for the people around her, who murmured. Then, more money exchanged hands. The lunch lady was cleaning everyone else out, Meredith noticed.

"Is it true?" one of the marines whispered.

"What?" She asked, confused. "Is what true."

"Is it true that…" He dropped his voice as if he was ashamed to ask the question, which, of course, he should. "That you fought Ronon Dex?"

What the hell? "We didn't fight." Meredith said slowly, because honestly, military men were incredibly stupid sometimes. "I wouldn't have had a chance. I mean, he just kind of hit me."

There was a gasp.

"More than once!" Jameson announced as if it was the best thing in the world.

"You're totally taking that out of context." She argued. "We weren't fighting. I just froze, and he tried to snap me out of it."

"By hitting you." Jameson said.

"Well, yeah."

"More than once?" the marine asked.

"Twice." Meredith sighed. "And it wasn't very hard, or anything, I just—"

"Most importantly." Jameson said, looking at her intently. "What did you do after he hit you, Dr. Moyers?"

"I started to look through the outpost database using the interface console to determine whether—"

"Before that." He interrupted her again.

"Well, I walked towards the interface console and then started to look through the outpost database to determine whether or not the mental interface was mediated by a traditional—"

"Before you walked towards the console."

"I didn't do anything." Meredith said, slowly, because Jameson clearly wasn't getting it. "I mean, he hit me, I got up and walked towards—"

Roaring in triumph, Jameson began collecting money from most of those at the table. The lunch lady gave him extra dessert. "Something unheard of." She grumbled, looking furious. "Last time I bet on vague comments by cheeky officers, you better believe."

"…What. The. Hell." Meredith said forcefully.

"Congratulations!" Jameson said, after he'd collected his money and shooed the others away from the table. "You're the first scientist we've heard of to get up after being hit _twice_ by Dex."

"You're fucking insane." Meredith told him. She knew that she couldn't have been the first - Dex sparred a lot, and taught most of the scientists self-defense. Clearly, Jameson was exaggerating. A lot. She decided to ignore him, and then took a careful bite of her mashed almost-potato.

"You are _so hardcore_." He smiled.

"I hate you." She mumbled around a mouthful of peas.

Jameson batted his eyelashes. "You are my hero."

* * *


End file.
